Games review – Saw II: Flesh & Blood (& boredom)

The week’s only horror-themed release has all the gory traps and violence of the movies but is it really the best way to celebrate Hallowe’en on your console?

Saw II: Flesh & Blood (PS3) – bloody awful

It’s not surprising to find that this is the only horror-themed game to be released in the week before Hallowe’en. The whole survival horror genre is a ghost of its former self now, with gamers apparently no longer having the patience for its more subtle thrills. Since subtly is hardly something you’d accuse the Saw films of you can understand why Konami would look to them, rather than Silent Hill, for inspiration. Although that’s probably the wrong word to use for this shovelware style sequel.

The first Saw game only came out last year and although not offensively bad the novelty of gory puzzles mixed with equally gruesome combat ended long before the game did. Although it’s called Saw II this has little to do with the second movie, except that it’s set between it and the third film.

You play as the son of Detective Tapp from the first film (and game): a newspaper reporter with more than a few skeletons in his cupboard. Naturally he’s kidnapped by Jigsaw and trapped with both fellow prisoners and Jigsaw sympathisers. We’ve got a feeling some of them are probably from the other films, but the game never makes this clear to non-fans.

The story in the original game made a fair attempt at trying to match the logic and tone of the films, but this doesn’t seem to have the time for such luxuries. Despite saving them from an impossibly gruesome end, almost all the people you rescue are bizarrely aggressive towards you and thoroughly unhelpful in terms of aiding your or their escape.

That means you have to battle through hordes of psychopaths largely on your own, although at least you no longer have to endure the original’s sloppy and repetitive combat. No, this time you get something even worse: quick time events. Setting traps and using the environment to help you was one of the few highlights of the first game but here almost everything has been replaced by simply following a Simon Says series of onscreen button presses.

This might not have been so bad (although it probably would have been) if the graphics and animation weren’t so laughably inept. We’ve rarely seen such unconvincing human characters in a modern release, which in a game that’s meant to be all about body horror is a real problem.

The other main element of the game, the puzzles, has changed relatively little since the first game. Professor Layton could solve them in his sleep though and you’ll be able to as well as the tedious wire-connecting and button-pressing mini-games repeat again and again. Disappointingly, failure often results in a simple explosion rather than the ultra gory death that is presumably the main reason anyone would think to play this game in the first place.

In its favour the game’s locations, as interchangeable as they might be, do at least look the part and at times the atmosphere does become impressively menacing. But as if the first game wasn’t proof enough the Saw franchise just isn’t very suitable for video game adaptation, since most of the puzzles you’re solving are simply repurposed from other all-ages games.

It’s very unlikely you’ll be fearing for your life while performing a lock-picking puzzle that could’ve come from any of a dozen other games. If you want a new game to celebrate Hallowe’en then frankly Costume Quest is a much better bet. If you want a real survival horror game then try one of the older Silent Hill games, from a time when games knew how to scare on their own terms – not by trying to copy somebody else.

In Short: Considerably worse than the thoroughly unremarkable original, this is a horror game but not quite in the way it was intended.

Pros: The background graphics aren’t too bad and at the beginning, before all the puzzles and traps become too familiar, it can be quite atmospheric.

Cons: Horribly repetitive in every regard. Dull puzzles and hopelessly uninteresting combat. Poorly written, and acted, story and dialogue.